In recent years a number of fine collections of critical essays on
Anglo-American modem and contemporary poetry have appeared, among
them David Murray's Literary Theory and Poetry: Extending the Canon, whose
focus spans the century, and Antony Easthope and John 0. Thompson's Contemporary Poetry Meets Modern Theory, which devotes approximately one
third of its space to current British work.
1 Another very recent arrival is Manchester University Press's 1993 volume New British poetries: The scope of
the possible (ed. Robert Hampson and Peter Barry), whose narrowed focus on
several strands of formally innovative poetries provides the space for some
substantial and, in some camps, long-awaited theoretical exploration (which
I will return to in a moment). But not since Carcanet Press's British Poetry
since 1970: a critical survey (ed. Peter Jones and Michael Schmidt, 1980)—
an update on their earlier book edited by Grevel Lindop and Michael Schmidt, British Poetry since 1960: a critical survey ( 1972)—has a volume exclusively
focusing on a wide range of contemporary British "poetries" appeared, and
never has there been such a book produced by an American press or written
by an international group of writers.My coeditor and I have attempted to
demonstrate something of the variety of possible conversations to be encountered on recent British poetry; we have done so by following (if rather
loosely and, at times, critically) in the footsteps of Carcanet's editors, offering our readers some updates on new developments in poetry since Jones
and Schmidt's 1980 volume, as well as a number of rereadings of the contexts and writers that volume featured (or neglected to feature) from new
perspectives in critical theory and contemporary philosophy.Everything
about our volume bespeaks variousness and not definitiveness: readers will

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: Contemporary British Poetry:Essays in Theory and Criticism.
Contributors: James Acheson - Editor, Romana Huk - Editor.
Publisher: State University of New York Press.
Place of publication: Albany, NY.
Publication year: 1996.
Page number: 1.

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